24 November 2013

As far as regular seasons go, I doubt there's been a more satisfying eleven-day stretch in Saints' history than the one we just witnessed.

Wins against Dallas, San Francisco, and Atlanta, and mounting butthurt among fans and NFL media centering on the Saints, have elevated this Saints' season to its entertaining best.

Let us recount with glee.

And for good measure, a fair dose of hate too.

First of all, among Saints' fans, there seemed to be an omnipresent angst after the Saints lost to the Jets in week nine.

On top of this, the Carolina Panthers then beat the 49ers in San Francisco. The media was in the midst of crowning Carolina the next big thing. A subset of Saints' fans across social media and message boards panicked. OH NO HERE COMES CAROLINA.

The neurosis wasn't all that surprising given this is a standard-issue response for Saints' fans scarred by decades of futility. The lingering memories of 2012 don't help either.

But then Dallas showed up in New Orleans, and the season took a turn for the better.

The Saints did their best 'Al Copeland' and delivered the gaudiest offensive performance in club history. They set an NFL record for first downs in a game. They set a franchise record for yards in a regular season game. They gained more yards in one game than any team since 1982*. (*regular season, non-overtime)

More, after the Saints humiliated the Cowboys in primetime, Jerry Jones lamented his decision to scapegoat and fire Rob Ryan:

“We thought it was best for us to go in the direction we are, and [firing Rob] doesn’t look good right now."

As a scapegoat, Rob Ryan is right at home in New Orleans and his own personal motivations (re-proving himself, etc.) mesh ideally with a Saints' franchise doing the same. That little mea culpa by Jerry Jones got things rolling before the San Francisco game.

The fun was just getting started.

A few days later, Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers rolled into town. Ugh.

After consecutive games of battering and handling the Saints, the 49ers only improbably hung around this time before losing. The Saints beating San Francisco was something of an exorcism (for we Saints' fans at least), and it marked a turning point in the Saints' evolution this season.

Though Garrett Hartley's three fourth quarter field goals should have been the story of the game, especially considering the sun-drenched ice he'd been skating on, the lasting memory that emerged from the game was Ahmad Brooks' hit on Drew Brees.

You remember, the one where Brooks tossed Brees to the turf by his face/chin/neck--bloodying Brees' face in the process--and yet everyone outside of Saints' fans cried over the penalty called.

Because in today's NFL where QBs are virtually untouchable, it's crazy --CRAZY!--that the refs would flag this:

If the initial hit didn't deserve the flag, then the follow-through/to-the-turf-by-the-head certainly did.

Somehow, the esteemed legitimate media disingenuously positioned Brooks' hit--labeled a penalty "ten out of ten times" by the league's former head of officiating--as the game-deciding (and according to Trent Dilfer, "season-altering") play.

Never mind that the Saints scored twice after that play. Never mind that the 49ers gained a mere nine yards in the fourth quarter. Nah, that screws up the dumb-ass narrative.

Instead, you had Mike Greenberg spewing bullshit like this:

Drew Brees hit Ahmad Brooks in the arm with his neck. Not the other way around. But the league needs Brees. That's just the way it is.
— Mike Greenberg (@Espngreeny) November 19, 2013

Yes, of course. Brees attacked Brooks with his own neck. Maybe you can chalk that up to mindless trolling, but I kinda doubt it.

And that wasn't it.

The NFL's preeminent attention-whore, Ray Lewis, wrongly called the play "the most embarrassing call in the National Football League since the tuck rule."

Way to understand a decade's worth of rules, Big Ray!

Then again, Ray never much gave a shit about those.

On top of this, Lewis offered to pay for half of Ahmad Brooks' eventual $16,000 fine, a move the NFL deemed acceptable. That's right, an outside party offering to pay a large amount of cash for an illegal hit: totally acceptable now! Lewis' reasons for offering to pay?

"Defenders has to be respected as men!" ... "THE NECK IS A PART OF THE BODY!"

Okey doke.

Paid, professional analysis right there.

Trent Dilfer, a former 49ers quarterback, said he was "offended" that Brees expected a penalty. His point was that Brees only had a "cut lip" and shouldn't have assumed a penalty in that situation. This apparently deeply offended Dilfer's high standards for NFL-bred toughness. Right.

By deriding Brees, Dilfer absurdly feigned a toughness of his own that couldn't in a million years hold a candle to the actual body of resolve, durability, and achievement that has defined Drew Brees' career.

But faking it has been Dilfer's modus operandi since his quarterbacking days in the NFL.

Ever the pseudo-intellectual, ever the man building an embarrassingly foolish vernacular of football terminology designed to make dumb people think he's smart (CASINO BLITZ! THERMOSTAT LEADER! FOOT PLATFORM! EXPLOSIVE SUDDENNESS! CONFLICT CATCH!), Dilfer and his shtick embody Charles Pierce's "average manhole cover," a phenomenon of phony articulateness unique to a multitude of self-styled NFL experts and one best represented by the apish Dilfer.

As if all that weren't enough Tedy Bruschi, a man still desperately clinging to the mundane, withered glories of days gone by, deluded in his recollection of factual reality, exhorted Drew Brees to "get tough."

No mention that it wasn't Brees' decision to throw the flag. Nor did Brees miss a play. Nor has he missed a game due to injury since arriving in New Orleans.

Never mind the fact that Brees guided the Saints down the field twice after the hit for the win. No mind that Brees recovered from one of the most devastating shoulder injuries without ever missing a game. That Brees, what a huge pussy! Right, Tedy?

In a sports media culture defined by hyperbole and driven by shallow, inane reactions, Bruschi and company sunk the basest of analyses to an embarrassing, moronic low.

"I don’t know what is more mind-numbingly awful. Mike Smith opting to kick a field goal down by four points with 2:24 left in a game, or the almost universal praise after the game that this was the right decision.

I can go about explaining it any number of ways, but this was a dreadful decision."

It's hard to argue with that characterization. Considering the implications for homefield advantage and this game representing the last of the ghosts haunting the Payton-era Saints (a big win against a tough opponent in an outdoor, road environment), I'd say the stakes are as high as ever.

If you listen to the pundits, and a gaggle of Saints' fans too, you'd think the Seahawks were some unstoppable juggernaut.

Remind me: what have the Pete Carroll Seahawks ultimately accomplished? Losing to the Bears and Falcons in divisional playoff games?

Not exactly a terrifying body of work.

Let's consider that the Seahawks have played the fourth-easiest schedule in the league this year; have consistently struggled to beat mediocre teams like Houston, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay; have an offensive line that's been the team's weakness this year; are missing Brandon Browner, their #2 cornerback; and have yet to face a team as well-rounded, well-coached, and talented as the Saints.

Might the Seahawks be a tad overrated?

Somehow though, as plenty of people would have you believe, the Saints must play a perfect game in order to escape with a win in Seattle.

Bitch, please.

The Saints, against a top-12 schedule, rank in the top-5 in both points scored and points allowed. The offensive line is coming together, as the Saints have rushed for 5.1 yards per carry (437 total yards) over the past three games. Additionally, Brees has been sacked only three times in the last three games after being sacked twenty times through the first eight.

Equally important, the Saints--not the Seahawks, not the 49ers, not the Panthers, not the Bengals, not the Texans, not the Ravens--have the NFL's best defensive line in 2013. For a Seahawks' offensive line struggling to pass protect this season (Football Outsidersranks them 30th), defending a Saints' defense ranked # 1 in adjusted sack rate will be no easy task.

It might buck the conventional wisdom, but that is a match-up squarely in the Saints' favor.

Unlike anybody in the Seahawks' front-seven, the Saints' Cameron Jordan is a legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate.

As I see it, almost all of the "difference makers" reside on the Saints' side. You don't really think Pete Carroll is going to outscheme Sean Payton in consecutive games, do you?

Is all that enough for the Saints to overcome the Seahawks' homefield advantage? I say yes.

Even as Saints' fans struggle to adjust to a different Saints' team, it seems like everyone else is even farther behind.

Whether the NFL media points this out (that the Saints are one of the better defensive teams in the NFL this year, and that's why they're well-positioned to win the NFC) in the lead-up to the game is anybody's guess.

The Seahawks--a team slated for greatness in the preseason and now riding the coattails of that confirmation bias--are 13-0 at home with Russell Wilson at quarterback. I guess that's where this whole "unbeatable" thing comes from.

But will it last another game?

Until the Saints win an outdoor road game like the upcoming test in Seattle, they'll continue to be doubted as true contenders outside of their home environs.

My guess is that, on Monday, December 2nd, the Saints will quiet the doubters.

Courtesy of the shaggy, itinerant Rob Ryan--finding himself long-last at home in New Orleans, Rolling Rocks and 4-2-5's, and on a revenge tour of his own--this Saints' defense is now the differentiating factor in the hazy competitive landscape of the 2013 NFL.

Who saw that coming?

Yes, Rob Ryan is the hinge on which the league's balance of power swings this season.

As far as the Saints are concerned, this is the most welcome of developments.

Listen to Steve Gleason, for god's sake:

14 seasons in NOLA. Best defense I have seen... 09 was opportunistic. This D is dominant.
-SG
— steve gleason (@TeamGleason) November 18, 2013

Thanks much, Jerry Jones. Mighty kind of you, especially after you let Sean Payton walk out of the building. Now if you don't mind, Monte Kiffin needs his afternoon cup of Sanka. Can you help out with that?

Ok. Enough dickishness.

Let's take a look at some numbers and factoids, shall we:

In consecutive games, the Saints have held the Cowboys and 49ers to under 200 yards of total offense. Moreover, the Saints have held five of their ten opponents under 300 yards of total offense this season. This, in a NFL, where offenses effortlessly roll up yardage thanks to a set of rules designed to benefit them.

For four straight games, opposing offenses (Bills, Jets, Cowboys, Niners) have converted less than 30% of their third down chances (14-for-48 to be exact). To date the Saints are third in the NFL in this category, a metric of the utmost importance. Even better? In the last two games, the Saints' defense has held the Cowboys and 49ers to a shameful 6-for-24 on third down.

And mind you, these are not bad offenses. The Cowboys' offense is among the handful of the NFL's best, and the 49ers came into Sunday's game ranked 9th in offensive DVOA.

In case you forgot, this is largely the same Niners team that scored 45, 28, and 31 in last year's postseason. You might have thought otherwise after watching them on Sunday, a game they desperately needed to win.

The Saints harassed Colin Kaepernick, a dude Ron Jaworski said not long ago could be one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time (WHAT?!?), sacking him three times and hitting him another six. For good measure, the Saints' defense sprinkled in five tackles-for-losses.

And did you see Akiem Hicks? Good god, man. Huge. Superfreak athletic. MOTIVATED. When he gets all King-Kong-beats-his-chest pissed off and then proceeds to smash apart the opponent's offensive line? Holy shit. He did that a bunch on Sunday.

Had it not been for two aberrant plays (the Lance Moore fumbled punt and the Corey White interception-fumble-whatever-the-hell-that-was), this game would have unfolded much, much differently. That the Saints won the game on the last play distorts the reality of a dominating, physical performance.

As it turned out, this game was a rite of passage for the Payton-era Saints or, at least, the modern incarnation of them.

Hitherto, the Saints were 1-11 under Payton when their turnover margin was -2 or worse. Additionally, the Harbaugh-led 49ers were a dominant 32-3-1 when their turnover margin was zero or better.

But on Sunday that script flipped even though the Saints turned the ball over three times to the Niners' one.

After getting physically manhandled by the 49ers in both 2011 and 2012, the Saints played one of their more physically-imposing games in some time, rendering the highly-correlating-to-victory turnover margin moot.

The Saints won the battle on the defensive line against a Niners' offensive line that many consider to be the league's best. The Saints' offensive line, for their part, played equally well for a second straight week. They assisted the running game to the tune of 4.0 yards per rush on 23 attempts, and controlled the line of scrimmage in the process.

If a three-point win can ever be considered "dominant," then this was it.

By my estimation, this was a watershed moment for the 2013 Saints. Things look increasingly promising for the Saints' chances in the NFC.

Sunday was the practice test for the showdown in Seattle looming in two weeks. The Saints look as ready as ever.

11 November 2013

Now that is the Sean Payton offense we've been waiting for all year: the wicked, all-consuming torrent of catastrophic might.

Momentous, unyielding, and overwhelming, the Saints' performance on Sunday night was a reminder that at any given moment with Payton and Brees at the helm, the Saints are quite capable of delivering the most thunderous of beatdowns.

Lest we forget.

courtesy of espn.com

For parts of the season, the Saints' offense has sputtered. The offensive line has looked lost at times. The run game has disappeared for stretches. Sean Payton has confounded us with what appeared to be a crisis of identity.

On Sunday night, that all faded away in the afterglow of another primetime victory.

With Payton returning in 2013, and the otherwordly dominance of the 2011 offense still far from a distant memory, we hoped Payton would return the team to the peak it reached sometime late in 2011.

Though the Saints' offense played well through their first eight games this year, it wasn't what it had been at its best. Not even close, really.

The growing anxiety was that, perhaps, the very best of the Payton/Brees offense was in the rearview mirror and that, while still excellent, it wouldn't fully regain its definitive, crushing power of past days.

On Sunday, though, the Saints let everyone know the party ain't over just quite yet.

The Saints played a historic game, setting an NFL record with forty first downs. Even better they accomplished that feat on eighty plays, a first down every other play--a mark of unrivaled efficiency. Even more, the Saints produced the second-highest, non-overtime yardage total in the regular season since the merger (1970).

Of all the epic and vicious and enjoyable and defining and perception-shifting and hegemonic offensive performances the Saints have authored under Payton, this one was the all-around best.

Take a look:

As illustrated, these displays of offensive dominance had arrived with regularity by the second half of 2011. The Saints, then, had morphed into something approaching unstoppable.

Sunday night's performance against Dallas wasn't just transcendent in the context of that established greatness, it also reintroduced the notion that it's not too late to get it back.

It reminded us that teams aren't defined by the first half of a season. It injected a dose of supreme confidence. It laid the groundwork of promise. It rattled the cages of neurotic Saints' fans who, sometime around 6:00 P.M. yesterday, had ceded the NFC South to the Panthers.

And finally, it forced the NFL to crane its collective neck and take notice.

These type of moments, in each of the Saints' best seasons of 2006, 2009, and 2011, have arrived with a definitive, primetime flair and announced the Saints as legitimate title contenders.

In 2006, it was a 42-17 thrashing of Dallas in which Sean Payton put his mentor out to pasture. In 2009, it was a 38-17 dismantling of the Patriots with Brees submitting perhaps the greatest single-game passing performance in NFL history. In 2011 it was a post-Christmas flogging of a footstool Falcons' team that fancied themselves upstarts, in which Brees broke the NFL single-season record for passing yards.

These are what I've referred to as "oh shit" moments in the past--as in, "oh shit, watch out, here come the Saints."

On Sunday night, we were graciously treated to the Saints' 2013 "oh shit" moment.

And it was glorious.

There was Marques Colston tossing aside reports of his demise. There was Mark Ingram running with anger and abandon. There was Pierre Thomas continuing to nudge himself into "Deuce" territory. There was Kenny Stills making yet another big play, downfield in traffic, for a touchdown. There was Brees painting another stunning masterpiece. There was the offensive line doing what we'd all hoped they'd eventually do. There was the defense again surrendering fewer than twenty points in the Dome. There was Sean Payton and Rob Ryan tormenting their former employer.

And on the other sideline there was a bewildered, dazed opponent waving the white flag.

Sunday was the game we've been waiting for since Payton was railroaded and suspended in early 2012.

May the dam now be broken.

The sobering bit of news from Sunday is the health of the Saints' secondary. Roman Harper and Malcolm Jenkins again sat out due to lingering knee injuries. Kenny Vaccaro departed after what appeared to be his
second concussion in three weeks.

Considering Vaccaro's style of play, this isn't the greatest of developments. If Vaccaro indeed suffered another concussion, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Saints shut him down for a few weeks. Multiple concussions in a condensed timeframe is, what I believe concussion experts tout as, a worse-case scenario.

Especially considering Vaccaro's status as a prized rookie, I would expect the Saints to err on the side of caution here. If Vaccaro's out, the Saints might be without their top three safeties against the Niners.

On the other hand, Glenn Foster and Corey White have continued to emerge as viable pieces for the defense. White especially looked impressive on Sunday night. His contributions seem all the more important considering the injuries in the secondary, and his previous experience at safety might pay dividends as the season progresses.

Foster's development after an excellent preseason, combined with Tyrunn Walker's return to health, means the Saints' defensive line should be loaded for the second half of the season. That will go a long way in helping the Saints deal with the run-oriented offenses in San Francisco, Seattle, Carolina, and St. Louis.

With seven games to go, securing homefield advantage looms as the likely deciding factor in the NFC this season. Accomplishing that (homefield advantage) means the Saints may indeed need to run the slate.

Last week, that seemed much less possible than it does this morning. Today, it's officially in play.

Now here comes San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle, Carolina, St. Louis, Carolina, and Tampa Bay. All conference games. Three home and four away.

First up comes the hated Niners, they the longtime shatterer of Saints' dreams. Exorcising the demons associated with the Harbaugh-led Niners is the first order of business on the way to homefield advantage.

It's not going to be easy, but Sean Payton has a bit of unfinished business after his bitter loss to the Niners in January of 2012.

If Payton aims to return better than he ever was, then beating San Francisco on Sunday is of the utmost importance.

07 November 2013

While The Angry Who Dat's website is down for maintenance, I'm honored to host his weekly post right here:

I didn’t get a chance to write last week, because of the road trip to New York, and I haven’t yet written this week, and now my site is infected with some sort of malware, so thanks to Reid for letting me borrow a bit of space over here.

Suffice to say, Bills game good, Jets game bad. Offensive line, ugly. That’ll have to do for now, because I really need to get this off my chest.

Richie Incognito is an asshole.

I mean, goddamn. This dude is certifiable. In case you haven’t been paying attention, these are the absolute, uncontested facts of the situation:

1. Richie Incognito is a bully who forced teammates to pay for extravagant meals and jetskis, threatened their mothers, defecated down their throats, and left alone at lunch tables at such a frequency as to make one of them leave football completely.

2. Richie Incognito hates black people.

3. The Dolphins organization told Richie Incognito to do these things, explicitly lining out a plan to break Jonathan Martin mentally and emotionally.

I propose these penalties:

1. The entire Dolphins front office should be suspended from football operations for one year, reviewable in perpetuity.

2. Joe Philbin should receive show-cause for 18 months or until Richie Incognito is released from prison, whichever comes last.

3. Richie Incognito should receive a lifetime ban from football.

The things that have happened in Miami over the last 2 years serve as a poor example to our children and should never be allowed in football.

Some say we should take a nuanced approach; I reject that position. Peter King prizes his journalistic integrity and refuses to jump to conclusions, and I commend him for his professionalism. But the evidence is clear: Richie Incognito sent several voicemails and texts that were threatening in nature, and someone heard them. They reported on them, and we as a football-loving public have no need to question the nature of the calls, as it has already been questioned and confirmed as malicious by media sources.

I mean, he said bad words and made threats. There’s no such thing as bluster in the locker room – all things are taken at face value. When a guy says he’s going to slap your mother, or shit down your throat, or destroy your outside ACL, you don’t have time to determine whether that act is physically possible or if that’s an actual body part that humans have. You take the threat seriously, and you punish.

Obviously, people intending serious threats say things like “I’ll shit down your throat.” That doesn’t sound absurd at all, and would terrify me to the bone if I heard it on my voicemail. Nobody wants to eat another man’s shit. And no white person, NOT ONE, has ever been too stupid to understand the seriousness of the N-bomb and felt entitled to use it in a moronic way, unless they actually did hate black people. That’s just basic common sense, and you don’t get to the NFL and succeed In This League without common sense.

The organization is complicit in all of it, according to an unnamed source quoted by precisely one media outlet in Miami, and confirmed by no others, and that’s good enough for me. The media doesn’t get this kind of shit wrong, people.

Worse than the crime, as always, is the cover-up. In the face of conclusive, damning evidence to the contrary, the Miami Dolphins have denied any wrongdoing. The players in the locker room, without exception, claim that Richie Incognito is a good teammate. Someone clearly spent a great deal of time lining up ducks. This defiance, this bald-faced refusal to admit to a wrong that has been made so clear by partial transcriptions of voicemails and a singular anonymous source, is galling in nature and shocking in scope, and should not go unpunished.

History will see the Miami Dolphins for what they are: a pack of bullies who no longer deserve to grace a football field that bears The Shield; that monetary concerns will not allow for the simple removal of the entire franchise is saddening, but it is the way of this world. However, morality need not completely succumb to the drives of capitalism.

It’s important that the league take an immediate, harsh and decisive course of action to quell what has quietly but clearly become a problem endemic in the NFL. An example must be made of the Miami Dolphins. In a just world, the entire organization would be brought down.

04 November 2013

I'm sure there are innumerable ways to rationalize the Saints' performance against the Jets, or otherwise explain away its legitimacy.

But really, what we saw on Sunday was a coalescing of flaws.

courtesy of the NY Times

During the first seven games these flaws individually and sporadically interjected themselves, though never with enough of an impact to prevent the Saints from winning.

That changed on Sunday, and the Saints took a physical beating at the hands of a team less talented and led by a rookie quarterback. A team, mind you, that lost the week prior by 40 points at home.

The Saints' shortcomings were all too apparent on Sunday, and all too impactful for the Saints to overcome.

After eight games, we've seen a trail of flaws, shortcomings, and obstacles. They look something like this:

* an underwhelming, inconsistent offensive line
* injuries (revealing a narrow dependence on a handful of offensive players)
* lack of production from the wide receivers
* the absence of a functional running game
* poor run defense
* a non-existent return game

Each of these issues, which had reared its head at some point during the season thus far, played a key role in the Saints' loss to the Jets.

The Saints, like every team out there, have their imperfections. At times those shortcomings will collectively play a dominant role and lead to ugly losses. Not a huge deal, generally.

But in terms of the Saints' loss to the Jets, there's a little more to it than just that. And that's what's disconcerting.

We've seen this before. Sunday's loss looked eerily familiar to a handful of losses under Payton.

The script goes something like this: a road game against a physical opponent in imperfect conditions where the Saints fall behind in the first half; both fail to protect Brees and run the ball effectively when needed; make a series of boneheaded, outcome-shifting plays on offense; hang around to make a game of it; then lose in the shadows of a signature play or two.

Though infrequent, these games have become familiar and unsightly.

It's easy to deflect the relevance and proclaim the Saints as one of the best road teams over the past several years. That, of course, is inarguable (the Saints have won more road games than any team since 2009).

But in a way, it's a misleading characterization too. There's more to it than just the surface analysis. If there's a formula for beating the Payton-era Saints, it's to get them outside of a dome environment, beat them up, and force them to play from behind.

On Sunday, that nemesis bested the Saints yet again in a similar circumstance.

It's not just an easily-dismissed, random event. It seems more of a characterization, a bad habit, and the main weakness of the Payton-led Saints.

In a vacuum, it's no shame that the Saints lost the game. And without question, this loss was far from damning to the Saints' ultimate chances this year.

But in the end, it presents a potential foreshadowing of what's to come if the Saints play on the road in the postseason. Avoiding that seems increasingly important.

The hope is that Sean Payton can develop a blueprint for winning games like these (outdoors, elements, vs. physical teams that present match-up problems, etc.) at some point very soon.

Either that, or the Saints can just lock up homefield advantage by winning the rest of their games.

With all that said, this is the single, most important takeaway from Sunday: one loss is not a referendum on the Saints' season.

Though there's a roadmap for beating the Saints, that's not to say the Saints are doomed or that they won't solve that puzzle as this season continues.

The Saints are 6-2 in a wide-open NFC. Every contender is flawed and beatable.

The Payton/Ryan/Brees triumvirate gives the Saints an opportunity to win every week. In fact, I'm not sure there's a better Coach/D-Coordinator/QB combo in the league.

In 2011, the Saints dicked around and lost three games in the first half of the season. Then they figured it out and made a run. Sure, the 2013 team isn't as strong (depth and talent-wise) as the 2011 team. But no matter, the point is that the Saints can still remedy what woes them and improve.

And anyway ... remember how badly the Saints throat-punched the overwhelmed, flawed Giants in week twelve of 2011? That same Giants' team limped into the playoffs at 9-7 and then won the Super Bowl.

On any individual week, it's a fool's errand to judge an NFL team. Having some perspective after an ugly loss seems pretty important right about now. Otherwise, I might start believing in a bogeyman that's more illusion than reality.

After eight weeks, the Saints have put themselves in position to make a run at it. Are they good enough? That we don't know yet. But at least they're well-positioned halfway into this thing.

Even in the face of a familiar loss that stirs up bad memories of past failures, it's still way too early to kick dirt on the Saints' Super Bowl hopes this year.

If the Saints are going to win the NFC, though, it's going to take an improved second-half performance from Sean Payton.

Payton has been, perhaps understandably, hot and cold through eight games. There have been a few, notable moments where Payton seems to lack conviction in what he wants to do.

It's important not to make too big an issue of a handful of plays. At the same time, it's also important to evaluate those plays in the larger context of what's happening. They may be a window into understanding bigger trends and decision-making processes.

Let me explain.

Twice in the last three weeks, in critical, game-defining spots, Payton has opted for sleight-of-hand instead of relying on one of the team's core strengths.

In New England, of course, Payton called an awkward Brees' bootleg that failed to produce a game-clinching first down.

On Sunday against Jets, on 3rd/4th and 1, Payton called on Jed Collins and Josh Hill in the biggest of spots. It's not so much that Payton chose, on 4th and 1 in a game-altering moment, to call an end-around to his third-string tight end.

It's moreso that Payton has failed to run behind Jahri Evans, or get the ball in the hands of Pierre Thomas, or have Brees throw it to Jimmy Graham. Instead of playing to the strengths of his best, most trustworthy
players, Payton has engaged in a puzzling exercise in fancy play syndrome.

Why?

Though this is just amateurish speculation, it might reveal that Payton is struggling to recapture the finer points in his playcalling at-large; and it also might reveal that Payton is pressing a bit--trying too hard and thus out-thinking himself.

Regardless, what was equally revealing during that key sequence on Sunday was Payton's lack of faith in Mark Ingram.

Three times Payton avoided giving Ingram a chance to convert the first down. On the first, Jed Collins took an inside handoff before the play was whistled dead due to a Jets' timeout. On the second, Brees threw a short pass in the flat that Collins scissor-handed and dropped. Then on fourth down, Payton again refused to hand it to Ingram, and opted for the Josh Hill end-around.

Which leads to the question: why is Ingram even out there?

Though I know the statheads will wag their fingers at me, the Saints have averaged 19.7 points with Ingram and 31.4 without him this year.

Of course, there are many more factors at play and it would be the height of idiocy to solely attribute this disparity in points to Ingram's presence on the field. Solely laying blame is not what I'm doing.

The point is that the Saints' offense seems to operate differently (read: worse) when Ingram is in there. The anecdotal evidence in points might partly be a reflection of this.

It's not just that Khiry Robinson has outperformed Ingram so far this season--like Chris Ivory did last year--but it now appears that Payton doesn't trust Ingram with even the most narrow of duties. If he doesn't, then the Saints are effectively playing a man down when Ingram is on the field.

It's tough to blame Payton for that lack of trust, but it's even more difficult to understand what Ingram contributes to the Saints' offense at this point.

Overall, the two factors in play here--Payton's reliance on trickery in big spots, and Ingram's role in the offense--are both areas that have limited the Saints this season. Whether we'll see that change over the next month is anyone's guess, but it's worth monitoring how Payton handles future, similar scenarios.

As is obvious, the upcoming four-game stretch will go a long way in 1.) revealing how good the Saints truly are and 2.) influencing how the remainder of 2013 unfolds.

First comes Dallas in the Dome on Sunday night. The memories of the 2009 Dallas game linger, and I'm sure that's not lost on either team.

Then comes San Francisco, a monkey the Saints badly need to wrest from their backs. After that is a trip to Atlanta on a Thursday night, a game the Falcons will desperately want to win in order to salvage their disaster of a season.

And finally comes the next big road test: at Seattle on a Monday night.

If you're looking for referendums on the Saints' season, then this four-game stretch will present all the data you'll likely need.

In the meantime, remember that the Saints are 6-2 and in prime position to take control of the NFC.